


Tendencies

by celluloid



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, F/M, Gen, References to Suicide, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-15
Updated: 2013-05-15
Packaged: 2017-12-11 22:47:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/804106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celluloid/pseuds/celluloid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times one of the crew thought about suicide, and the one time someone did more than think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Kirk

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the Star Trek kink meme back in the summer of 2009.

With the wind tossing his light blond hair around, he finally feels alive, for the first time in his life.

That’s not quite true, but it’s the first time he can consciously recall feeling alive. When he has to squint against the sun and the sun-bleached bangs interrupting both the blue of his eyes and of the sky – wholly visible with nothing to obscure it, because this is Iowa and god forbid there be so much as a cloud to add interest to the landscape – that’s when he can finally feel the blood moving through his veins. Not roaring. Just moving. Eleven years old and it’s only now he can feel his heart beat.

The sudden sensation feels like a hammering, a pounding, even though the rate isn’t elevated terribly far from normal – yet. He pushes his foot down on the gas pedal even further, lets a cry escape his throat, for the first time not holding his silence. 

James T. Kirk can see the empty expanse of nothing pass behind him, come up in front of him, and he knows what it means. He’s lived it. Not just in it, though he has done that much, but… He’s always stayed off to the side, quiet, trying to dodge out of the way and duck behind ankles should he ever get caught taking something apart and rebuilding it. That’s what he does with his spare time. He fiddles with technology in the corner, in the garage, out back in the shed. He keeps himself quiet and out of the way and avoids everything and everyone.

They said he was completely detached, withdrawn into himself. That there was a fairly decent chance that he would grow up to be socially crippled, for life, unable to do something so simple as carry a conversation. Just because he watched them from the corner. Curled himself up. Tried to turn his back away, and only regarded them with a look from big, blue, blank eyes.

Except they were never blank and he knew what they were saying was a complete load. Jim just hadn’t found anyone. Not yet. 

His dad was dead.

His mom was never around.

Sam was going away.

No, he just hadn’t found anyone yet. He’d show them – there was nothing wrong with him. He was only quiet to survive. He didn’t reach out to anyone to avoid rejection. But that would change, it had to…

And if it didn’t…

None of that matters now, because he can feel the wind striking him and he relishes in the cool feel of it. The engine is roaring and the music is blasting and he can see just over the windshield, and he rips past Sam and waves at him, using his voice for the second time in his life, just after his earlier cry when the roof went sailing over his head, and it doesn’t matter because he can feel the rush and—

And then there’re sirens, and Jim looks back in the mirror. And he can see the figure on a speedy, small bike, dressed wholly in black, with no face, and before he knows it the future reaper is right up beside him, talking to him, ordering him to do something.

Jim freaks because this means he’s going to be in trouble. He’s going to be taken back and he knows what’s going to happen, that’s where Sam is going, that’s _why_ Sam is going, he’s seen Sam, they shared a room all his life, as far back as he can remember, he’s seen his brother’s thin body as he took the brute of it for him until he just couldn’t anymore and now it’s going to happen to Jim and he’s done his best to stay out of trouble, always, always, because he never wanted it to happen to him and now it’s going to and oh…

So he veers off wildly, not really paying attention to much else, just trying to recapture the sensation of his heart beating without fear as its motivator. He can’t and his mind races around him as fast as the landscape does. That maybe they were right, that he _is_ withdrawn, completely, that he’ll never find anyone, that’s why his dad left him, that’s why his mom left him, that’s why his brother is leaving him. And now he’s going to be in trouble, big trouble, and it’s going to hurt, and he’s not going to have anybody to tell him it was okay afterwards, that he’s okay, he’s not okay. 

Jim is eleven years old when he goes for a joyride that partway through he decides is a suicide trip. He’s eleven years old when he finally feels the rush, he’s eleven when he sees the steep cliffside fast approaching, he’s eleven when he decides that breathing is still worth it.

He flings himself from the vehicle, having already decided that no, this isn’t a suicide trip, about the time when his convulsing heart drops down into his gut when he sees the cliff’s edge _that_ close and the reality is _that_ real and it’s the fear of losing this, life; everything, that keeps his foot glued to the accelerator, because he’s forgotten how to move now.

He never wanted to die he never wanted to die he never wanted to die, he was never going to, he didn’t mean to come out here, he didn’t mean to go this far, he’s not going to lose this when he’s just found it, he honestly had no idea what he was doing – really – but now the world is going to think differently of him, that when Jim was eleven years old he seriously entertained the thought of killing himself in a fiery crash after flying for a couple hundred vertical meters.

Jim has other places to fly to through much safer means, so while the first time he’s airborne for just a few seconds, it’s exciting, but he never meant for it to happen like this. He’d only been thinking…

He finds his voice for the third time that day, along with his name, and his life, and he’s damned if he’s going to let that go anytime soon.


	2. Chekov

His first mistake was being born a few years later (but that wasn’t really his choice, so it wasn’t really his mistake).

His first real mistake was assuming that this wouldn’t matter.

Pavel assumed that attending Starfleet at the supposedly-tender age of fourteen wouldn’t result in any problems for him, outside of the fuss his parents had kicked up about sending their baby halfway around the planet – but he wasn’t a baby anymore, he was fourteen, thank you very much, I know you love me Mom and Dad but it’s okay and I’ll be fine – and the worries the officials at Starfleet had over whether or not he’d be able to keep up with the coursework.

He decided that he preferred Starfleet’s worries, because at least they weren’t treating him like a baby outside of what was reasonable. In fact, he’d felt a little flattered by them, because it was like they were saying that only someone truly exceptional, at his age, could handle it. And he knew he was truly exceptional. That’s why he was going to be the youngest cadet in its history. And he was going to pass, with flying colours, and make his parents proud, and his entire family proud, and nobody would ever second-guess him again. Not for his age. Because he was already proving that he was just as good as anyone else over there, even if he was only two thirds as old as the other cadets.

Pavel was ready to go to San Francisco and do all of the work and experience an actual challenge rather than the classes back home. While he loved Russia, very deeply, he just… It just wasn’t working for him there. Even with some of the advanced placements, he…

So young Mr. Chekov boarded the shuttle with his bag, waving to his parents, and he suddenly found himself alone in the world.

Which he could handle.

Because he was going somewhere that valued skills such as his own. Back home, his intelligence was deeply respected, and that would carry on to his studies at Starfleet, because they needed smart people out in the field there, and he would join them as an equal, and…

It was just that, well, Pavel hadn’t quite factored everything in. He knew he was going to learn, so that he could avoid making such mistakes in the future, but these weren’t the kind of calculations he thought he’d have to consider…

He was right about the most important thing. He was respected. His professors adored him because he did his work, flawless as ever and with acute attention to detail, and not once did he struggle or complain about it being too much. He took it all and he did it smoothly and perfectly and he never had to be brought in – other than to be told what a magnificent job he was doing, and here, do you think you could even handle extra credit? – and he never suffered any problems with the academic administration.

He never had to go to the administration.

Because upon his admission to the Academy, which was a struggle in and of itself, Pavel had promised that there would be no problems. He would not have to bother the admiralty or the faculty or the staff or whoever it was in charge about anything ever at all ever for as long as he was there. So he couldn’t go and try to…

The one thing he had forgotten to factor in was the social aspect of studying. That yes, academics were often an individual pursuit: where you were striving to only better yourself, not compete with your peers. Pavel had heard that lecture many times, every new year, and even when he came for orientation at Starfleet, he continued to hear that he just had to his absolute best, and yes he could do his absolute best, what else was he going to do here? But it was still in a group setting. And he was living in the dorms. Amongst his peers. So that in the off-hours – a lot of which Pavel spent studying, because he hadn’t been able to make any friends – he could hear them all, always around him, having fun with one another.

Pavel could deal with that. He understood the need to socialize and go out and have fun with friends. He did it a lot himself back in Russia, where he… had friends. But here he… He was, like, at least three or four years younger than everyone else. At the absolute least. All of the other cadets were probably even older than that. He knew he really, really stood out, but he had thought that as long as he did really well, and didn’t slack off, and knew what he was talking about, he could make some friends in his classes, they could study together, maybe even from there when they were done studying they could hang out, they could do… something…

Except not, because apparently, being fourteen? Was a big deal. Nobody else at the Academy was that young. And being a whiz kid? Meant absolutely nothing. Because that still meant he was just a kid. The fact that he could keep up with those sitting in the lecture halls beside him was meaningless, because most of them just ignored him and his big, bright eyes and his curls and yes okay he looked young because he was young, that’s very nice, thank you for noticing, would you like to—Oh, I see, you’re busy. That’s alright. I understand, we do have a lot of—Oh. You’re… not that kind of busy.

Fine.

So he could be ignored, then. Even that much would be okay; he could live with that. No problems. None whatsoever. He would just focus on his work. Take more classes. Get out of there faster, onto a ship faster, and he could make friends on the ship where he would see the same people every day at his post, and it wouldn’t be the mixed up faces from his classes, and lifelong bonds could be formed.

But no – apparently it wasn’t going to work like that, either. Pavel hadn’t really experienced much bullying back at home – it was such a close, tightly-knit community, everyone was friends and…

Why, of all things, did he have to be picked on for his age? Why did he have to be _harassed_? What did that accomplish? What was the point of it? Why did he have to be jostled about in the hallways? Why did those bigger than him have to gravitate towards him and throw his PADD away, or give him punches that they claimed were playful but really they weren’t, they hurt, and he doubted that even though they claimed that if he was bigger and older they wouldn’t hurt and that he would _get it as a guy thing_ because even if he was only fourteen he already was a _guy_.

Why was it that due to the fact that he was younger, nobody would speak to him, give him the time of day, unless it was to give him shit? Pavel wanted to avoid that as much as possible; he just wanted a friend or something, but instead, to avoid being fucked with he had to keep to himself. When he had to go eat, he was shoved into some unoccupied corner, until he started seeking those out himself, so that he wouldn’t be a bother to anyone. Even though it did hurt his chances of hearing, he started taking the seats in the backs of his classes, so that he could slip in, take his notes, do the tests, and then slip back out and just go straight to his dorm room, where his roommate never was, and even when he was he didn’t say anything because he only came by to sleep, and.

Pavel ached to call home, but he’d told his parents not to worry, and if he called, then that would be giving them reason to worry. And he didn’t want to do that. If he did, they might go over his head and talk to the Starfleet officials, and then he would be kicked out, because he was too young, and it wasn’t a good idea, and he never should have been there in the first place, because he wasn’t emotionally stable enough and he’d never be able to fit in and that’s why he was always on his own, and that’s why there were a few bruises, and that’s why he was so thin, and that’s why he flinched any time anybody raised a hand anywhere around him, and why his eyes darted all over the place, not ready to put up with being cornered and being subjected to juvenile – for cadets, especially – taunts about being a freak, and how he should just run back, crying to his mommy, because he was already crying, because he was such a fucking baby, because he was four. fucking. teen. Thank you very much, he was well aware of his own age, he actually did possess a great deal of intelligence, he just wasn’t smart enough to recognize that he was apparently much much much much much much much too young and too undeserving and that’s why he locked himself away and went out as little as possible so that nobody would ever bother him again, and make fun of him again, and harass him again.

All he’d wanted to do was go further, push his academic limits; he didn’t think that this would ever be a problem, he thought that he’d find a home amongst the others here, so why couldn’t he?

It’s when his first semester of classes are ending that he realizes he’ll have to go back home, and he isn’t sure if he can tell a lie with a straight face anymore, if he really can smile anymore. At least not for that long a period of time, because sometimes instructors noticed but he could just put on a grin and say that no, he loved this class, he was having an amazing time here, but thank you for your concerns anyway, I’ll let you know if anything happens – except he couldn’t, because then he’d be kicked out and he’d have to carry that shame and maybe once people back at home would have consoled him, except he’d been belittled non-stop for the past four months so whatever self-esteem he’d had before was gone and…

He can’t go back home, even if it’s just for the holidays, and face that shame. And then have to stay here longer… He elects to take additional courses during the downtime, and live in his dorm. And the dorms are quieter now, empty as all of the other cadets who apparently knew what they were doing so much better than he did (even though he was pulling the top marks, and at the beginning _they_ had used _him_ for homework until he’d figured out what was going on) are now taking their vacation time.

As Pavel buries himself in his work he finds his mind drifting. That it’s quiet here, it’s empty, he has all the time in the world, nobody can come by to stop him… Because he can’t go back, it’ll make him worthless. And he can’t tell anyone, because he’ll be sent back. And if he tells anyone, he’ll be admitting that he is worthless, anyway. But he just doesn’t want to deal with it anymore. He can’t enjoy himself anymore, not in the classes, not in the…

He’s about ready to do it, too, but he can’t come up with a suitable means. One that he isn’t scared of and yet one that will still work and not leave the chance that he’ll survive.

Maybe in another semester he’ll be braver. Or maybe he can do it this semester. Maybe he just has to rely on a specific event to send him over; until then, he’ll keep it in mind. And entertaining the idea of killing himself does make it a little easier. Because now he has a means of escape that he can accept.

But he can’t let anyone see it, or else all of that bad shit will happen. So he keeps his face blank, passive as he steps into his first class of his official second semester, an intense geographical course covering the vast expanse that is the universe, distances, light years, magnitudes of warp, time, whatever, something fairly easy that he’s sure he can do and will have no problem at all grasping from his spot in the back.

He sits down in the aisle seat, one space left in between him and another cadet who simply eyes him and smirks and Pavel keeps his face blank blank blank he is not straining, and just before the class starts another young cadet – though still older than him - runs in, panting and thanking god under his breath that he isn’t late, because he’d been kept so long in the lab and had lost track of the time. Even as the new arrival sits down next to him, Pavel doesn’t spare a glance, just keeps staring straight ahead, waiting for the lesson to begin.

The other cadet heaves a sigh and sets up his own materials, laughing a little breathlessly, and then he turns to Pavel and grins and sticks out his hand and says, “Hey. I’m Hikaru.”

Pavel starts and he hopes it isn’t too noticeable, that he doesn’t look like an idiot, as he turns and looks at Hikaru’s hand before tentatively reaching out to take it with his own. “P—“ He clears his throat. “Pavel Andreievich,” he replies. 

While they wait for the lesson to really start and get past all of the attendance and boring introductory crap, Pavel fiddles with a stylus, glancing at Hikaru through his peripheral vision. “Um,” he says, his voice cracking a little, and Hikaru turns to look at him expectantly. “Vhat… Vhat vhere you doing in ze lab?” he asks, fiddling uncertainly, because he hasn’t made conversation with anyone in like five months and he has no idea if this is a prank being played on him or what.

But Hikaru is nice and friendly and really genuine as he answers, and the two carry on a little whispered conversation. As it goes on throughout the class, Pavel finds himself becoming more and more at ease, more and more sure that this is real, and by the time the class is over, he’s pretty certain that he can make it through this.


	3. McCoy

He finds himself in fucking Iowa without the first clue as to why he’s here and the only sight to grace his vision being that of some alcoholic drink or another, of course, because if he’d learned his lesson then he probably wouldn’t be here. Or maybe he would be. Whatever.

The bar is largely unappealing and it’s hazy and cloudy and gross and does a spectacular job of being a physical, tangible projection of his mood. McCoy feels like it’s easier to just slip into this sort of scene and never pull out from it; here he can feel right at home, not because he should but because he wants to, not because he wants to but because he has to. This is what he deserves because this is all that there is left for him and this is what he knows so it only makes sense, right?

McCoy eyes the shot glass in front of him, downs it, then signals for another; changes his mind partway through that and just asks for the whole bottle. He gets it and pours himself another shot, tries to see his reflection in the amber liquid, but it’s too small and he can’t really catch anything and he decides that maybe it’s better that he doesn’t, because he’s pretty sure that he looks awful and dishevelled; at least he did last time he’d checked. Which he isn’t sure when that was.

He isn’t sure when anything was at the moment. He’s just been working his way away through whatever means, ground transportation, mostly. Though he’s positive he fits in with this scene, right here, and that in and of itself is plenty depressing because he should probably be above the backwater hicks surrounding him, being loud and rambunctious and stupid. And for chrissake, he’s a doctor, a professional, real, fully educated and not at all disgraced doctor, so what the fuck is he doing in this sort of atmosphere?

He smiles a little, lightly, in sheer self-deprecation and takes the shot, pours himself another one, takes it, pours another one, and waits a moment as the burning liquid goes down his throat. It’s hardly soothing; really, it just hurts at this point, and he probably shouldn’t be doing this, but McCoy has a hard time really caring about that right now and he relishes in the slight pain. Not for any particular reason. Just because it feels kind of right.

Yeah, he might be a little out of his mind right now. But he has good reason to be, or so he thinks, at the absolute least. He’s lost too much, isn’t too sure what he’s got left. He has this bottle and… um… there’s the stuff in the bottle. That’s good. Why is it still just sitting in there? It should be resting in the pit of his stomach. A lovely little poison that will do very little, true to its name, to fuck up his insides, but oh well.

McCoy takes the final shot, squints his eyes in front of him, looking at the bottles filled with various liquids blearily and without a very clear line of sight. Not that it is much of a sight. At all. Especially not compared to what he’d had before, and god, it just kind of sucks. 

With a sudden forceful decisiveness, he gets up from his stool, using his hands to push himself away from the bar, and stumbles out, credits left back where he was before because he may be a lot of things, apparently, thanks, Jocelyn, but he isn’t a thief or anything. He’s still honest. Maybe that was part of the problem. Not his fault. Or maybe not. 

There are too many maybes here to deal with, and it’s not like he’s feeling particularly thoughtful or philosophical or any of that shit, not when he can’t remember quite how many days it’s been or how he got up here or why he came up here other than to get away, away because he… doesn’t know. He was ordered to? Something. Mind’s a little fuzzy. He wanted to, anyway. Kind of. Partially. Not completely.

He’s still a doctor so McCoy has that going for him, and he still has his license, so that’s good (really, really good actually), he just doesn’t have a hospital. Or a practice. He can always find one though, is that why he’s—He needs to get away, doesn’t he? Is that what he was doing up here…? Find another place but keep on doing what he’s doing, because that’s what he does, it’s what he’s always done, it’s…

He’s still a good person because he still cares about people and looking out for them and healing them whenever they fall ill and helping them through the pain and relieving people of as much discomfort as possible (preferably without killing them and he still kind of loves his father, a lot, but the fucking bastard was kind of, well, a fucking bastard to ask him to do that, even though he did it because he saw no other way until a few months later and god damn but did that fucking suck but he did his job and alleviated the goddamn pain and treated his patient with dignity and respect so he’s just not going to go back over that any further than this). He still cares enough to do it properly without actually hurting anyone. He still wants to save lives; whether his own is among that group or not who’s to say, but then again, he’s always been rather self-sacrificing. Or so he thought.

McCoy has no idea what went wrong, where it went wrong, what it was that he did wrong because he figures he’s been more of a doormat, anyway, because yeah, he doesn’t look after himself maybe as well as he should, but he has a good excuse for that – he’s too busy looking after everyone else, everyone else too stupid – but not on purpose he’s sure they’re just absentminded or ignorant or something – to look after themselves properly. That’s his job. To fix people up like that.

Was his job. He doesn’t quite have that anymore. Travelling across the country without any intentions of returning will kind of do that to you. 

He can see a shipyard in the distance and figures that maybe there, maybe people are needing his services there, people get hurt in areas like that all the time, yeah? Then again, they probably already knew that and already have more than adequate services; his mind reaches for the specifics and he’s sure of it once it grasps them, because it’s motherfucking _Starfleet_ , of course, so they’ve thought about this. They take this sort of thing into account. McCoy snorts and works his way through the small town, not the only one out on the streets, and since he’s more well-behaved than some of these retards then he probably isn’t going to get into any shit as long as he sticks to the shadows and himself.

Apparently he’s really great at sticking to himself and bottling everything up so it shouldn’t be a problem, and speaking of bottling things up, where was his—what was he—right, right, he left it back there, he thought he’d finished. McCoy sighs and runs a hand through his unkempt hair, not usually all that like himself, but this is what he’s doing now, so, whatever.

He’s still a doctor and that’s great but what’s so much less great is the fact that he’s been chased away from his kid, lost any chance of custody due to one woman’s hyperboles, because okay – yes – he does drink occasionally. _Occasionally._ That isn’t a license to drag it up all the time. McCoy isn’t an alcoholic but he can become one if he damn well wants to and right now it’s a thought.

He has to get off and away, he’s been ordered, so he hugged his daughter one last time and nearly started crying but wouldn’t let himself, because she didn’t need to see that, never needs to see anything like that, like this, and the thought that immediately crosses his mind after the first one is that if he keeps out and in a back alley somewhere, or maybe just in the middle of a field of nothing, just hiding out in nature where nobody is likely to stumble upon him until there’s nothing left but bones, then he won’t be identified – at least not for a while – and by then maybe there will be no proper means of contact, no idea of _who_ to contact. Or maybe Jocelyn and Joanna will move or something and leave behind all signs of an old life, and Joanna could be older by then anyway, and then he wouldn’t have to drag a six-year-old through what he’s sure are pretty horrific pains that surface when it comes to burying one’s own father (he wonders lightly, in a bit of a fuzzy daze, if it’s on the same level to be that young and to have been the one to be the reason for the burial, but it’s a fleeting, inane thought).

So McCoy has been chased away, is running away, without much other than the clothes on his back, his medical license without a place to utilize it, and very little means or excuses of even being able to talk to – let alone fucking hug again – his own fucking flesh and blood that he loves more than anything on this godforsaken planet, in the fucking shitholes that are these states, and jesus. He could really use another drink.

He enters a new building, comes out, a full bottle to his credit and slips around, away from the streets, closer to where the shipyard is in a more open but still completely dark because it’s that late at night field, pissy and swearing under his breath and just a little disoriented but not too much because he’s done this before. And he opens it, downs its contents in two swigs, looks around him and suddenly brings the bottle swinging down to the ground in a forceful motion. The glass shatters and he’s left with a grip on the still-intact handle, but the new end of the bottle – the part he’s still holding – is all broken up and sharp and kind of dangerous.

She wants the whole fucking planet? McCoy ponders, to himself, twisting the bottle around, trying to catch the occasional glints the pointed ends give off in the moonlight. She can goddamn have it, because right now he’s… Oh. It really doesn’t even matter. He can leave his body here but if his own consciousness is no longer conscious or even existing then he guesses that she wins anyway. Probably more than she wanted to, because Jocelyn might be kind of a complete fucking cunt, but she isn’t that big of a cunt. She didn’t want him dead, just broken.

He twists the bottle around some more, rolling his wrist as he grasps it. McCoy rolls up his sleeves a little, exposing those wrists, and god, he knows human anatomy pretty well. At least he’d really like to think so. He knows where to cut – and he smashed it in the dirt, as well, so it’s probably even more, you know, dirty, which could do extra damage, not that he’d have the time to appreciate it – in order to drain himself out pretty quickly. It would be messy and it would spill and it wouldn’t be totally instantaneous but if he went after both of them it would probably be fast enough and then he could stop wandering around like the pathetic fuck he is, whining and bitching and christ, his head hurts.

McCoy regards the bottle, uses his other hand to feel at his unshaven neck because it would probably just be easier to go after the jugular, though he can’t really trust his aim here and there is still such a thing as too much pain and being too messy. There’s an extent to which this is ridiculous and christ, it really is.

With a scoff he tosses the rest of the bottle to the ground and steps over it, doesn’t look back at it, just keeps lumbering along at a haphazard pace to the shipyard. He’d heard something about a shuttle departing soon, for San Francisco or something, another Starfleet thing, and hell, it’s better than leaving a dirty corpse with wrists sliced wide open like a teenaged girl who decided that life wasn’t fair because her parents were assholes or something, and he’s a grown man, he should be above this.

It’s still dark out so he has more than enough time to get there by walking. It’s not something McCoy particularly wants to do, but fuck, it’s got to be better than killing himself in an open field.


	4. Scott

But god damn, is he hungry.

Really, really hungry.

_Really_ hungry.

And bored. Scotty is also extremely bored. Six months or something like that (who’s to know, who’s to care, how much longer is it going to be, is six months going to seem like nothing eventually? If it’s been six months. Maybe it already is nothing. Maybe it’s so much of nothing that he isn’t even aware of how much of a nothing it is, in which case then how long has it been, really, and if it actually is nothing already but he isn’t aware of it then it’s never going to seem like nothing, is it? Maybe it’s been _less_ time. And it just feels so long and stretched out because christ, really now), and he hasn’t had much to do in all that time.

He can… sit around. Who doesn’t love a good sit? He can’t eat, because it’s disgusting; on the plus side, he isn’t fat. So he looks awesome. For the all of one other sentient being here to see it. Who doesn’t really care. Not that he should. Because seriously. No.

… Not yet, at least. Hunger and boredom can probably do strange things to people. Mostly boredom, he suspects, if there’s more than one party involved.

Okay, he’s just not going to go there.

He can just sleep.

Some more.

Because that’s all he has to do with his life now, except for maybe flick beans at Keenser, but that stopped a while ago when the little guy had rounded on him for that, and then started bitching about how he was the one that had to run around the whole place all the time while Scotty just got to sit back in the middle where it was always warm and where the cooler, bigger machines were, and Scotty had countered that the smaller stuff was for the smaller people, and then they just started yelling at each other, pissed off and desperate for a confrontation of any type, and then they didn’t speak to each other for a week, and then they got bored of that and Keenser started flicking beans at Scotty and Scotty had smacked him and they were good again.

And then Scotty would go back to sleep because he already has this place’s facilities memorized and worked out and doesn’t have any of the materials necessary to improve them or build something else (because why should he have any comforts. The heat’s nice, though) and you can only keep yourself entertained with one other person for company for so long.

Especially when it reaches a stage past just getting on one another’s nerves to the point where it has very little effect (it takes a while to rejuvenate or find something else to argue about, even if it is nothing, because he just doesn’t have the energy for it anymore).

He is bored and hungry and even tired. The heat keeps on putting him to sleep. And that’s starting to piss him off. Even though he doesn’t have anything to do. He can work himself out of his lethargy just a little to get pissed off at, well, nothing really. And then he loses the energy because what’s the point.

He gets up and roams the halls on occasion but he doesn’t even feel like doing that anymore, but it’s a little colder out there so that’s nice and he stays up for he isn’t sure how long, but probably over twenty-four hours, just roaming the halls, until the next thing he knows Keenser is prodding at him and he realizes he’s slumped up against the wall of an empty, barren hallway, and he wonders just what in the hell he was doing to get there, then decides it doesn’t matter.

There is nothing to talk about here. Or do. Keenser doesn’t eat much and he doesn’t speak much. Sometimes he climbs up on stuff he isn’t supposed to and Scotty yells at him and then he doesn’t come down or he gets stuck or something and half of the time Scotty will just leave him up there to stew for a while and the other half he’ll get him down, somehow (whether it’s by going up there himself or getting a pole or something is a completely random choice), but it is still goddamn boring and doesn’t do much to brighten his spirits.

He kind of really hopes that damn dog appears here so he can have something soft and warm and cuddly and full of affection to lavish his attentions upon. And then when someone comes he can send a message to Archer telling him to suck it, because the beagle is his now because it loves him more. And that will be so sweet.

Except that doesn’t happen and Keenser would hole himself away forever if Scotty started paying that much attention to him (and he isn’t soft or warm or cuddly) so he’s still essentially left without companionship.

And he’s a very sociable man, so being sent to a mostly-isolated outpost does nothing for his spirits. At all. It’s kind of crippling, really. He has nothing to lose himself in and nobody to really get into a conversation or drunken brawl with (he doesn’t even have any scotch. Life is terrible) and there’s hardly news of anything coming in because he figured out a while back that he’s being punished, very much so, and very unjustly, and life isn’t fair, and this sucks, and he’s going to be here forever, isn’t he.

That’s when he gets a brilliant idea.

Scotty is going to go on a hunger strike.

The very fact that nobody is really going to notice is basically the entire point (they don’t know what he’s protesting against or that he even _is_ protesting, at all, so the strike will not be noticed and no action will be taken to appease him and he’ll wither away. It’ll take a while, but he’d like to think that he’s used to the feeling of starvation by now so it’s not like it’s going to be anything new, and surely the hunger pains will die out or fade into the background or something because if he can’t get real fucking food then he’s just not going to eat that shit), and that in and of itself depresses him a little further (although he is a little happier now that he has a plan of action and a solution for this mess), because it basically tells him just how worthless and insignificant he is.

And he knows that he’s hardly worthless or insignificant, and that is not just his ego talking he is _brilliant_ thank ya very much, but the fact that he has been shoved away into some corner and is being completely ignored is kind of killing him, a lot, so the hunger strike idea is actually brilliant too when you think about it because it’s symbolic, kind of. In the way that he enjoys the finer things in life and has none of them, and that includes food, and if he can’t get it then he just isn’t going to put up with this bullshit anymore. 

It’s not a cry for attention; it’s just a means of doing something about an ugly situation. He’s problem solving. He distracts himself by working out equations, knowing that he has no way of verifying them or testing them in any practical means but they do keep his mind off of the ache building in his gut.

He’s maybe three days or four days or five days or whatever, something into the hunger strike and the giddy thrill of taking back his life is starting to die down when a crazy human and a crazy Vulcan (whodathunkit?) show up and make him feel half-way sane again, and he can’t stop rattling his mouth off now, he’s just bubbling, and he has the chance to be a pioneer of a feat of engineering and after that he can raid a mess hall, so alright.


	5. Uhura

All she can hear is the pounding of her heart. Just a constant thudding that started up when she first stepped up to say goodbye, and has been going completely erratic since, always increasing but never at a steady, reasonable pace or anything. She ignores it as best she can, despite the fact that all she can hear is the blood rushing through her ears.

Uhura isn’t needed right now so she’s left to herself, standing awkwardly in the transporter room, glancing over at the technicians and fiddling with her hands. She has no idea what to be doing with them right now. She doesn’t know what’s happening. She has no way of knowing what’s happening. And she just can’t make herself move, she can’t leave the room, because it’s the closest contact that she still has with him. Maybe for the last time. And she can’t think about that but that’s all she can think about because it’s entirely possible that there will never be another time after this, and she feels so unfulfilled and unsatisfied with the way they parted, but she knows that she never really would feel satisfied with it, because you’re always going to want more in a situation like this, even if you can’t have it, it’s just necessary.

She closes her eyes and tries to steady her breathing, taking deep breaths, trying to centre herself and her mind and cursing about the fact that they hadn’t bonded, not yet, so that—She isn’t sure if she’d actually want to feel it, if he did… And so… Or if she would feel it quite that harshly, being of a different species, or—She regrets not asking as much, not knowing as much, especially now that his planet is gone and she’ll never get to see it, see where he grew up and learn more about the Vulcan ways of life and now she might not be able to and oh, god…

A hand rubs her back, a little, just a light, soothing touch, and Uhura opens her eyes again to see the new guy, Scotty, Kirk called him, with a sympathetic smile and warm eyes next to her. “I wouldnae worry about it, lass,” he says, Scottish lilt in a comforting tone. “I’m sure they’ll both be back, before ya know it.”

Uhura finds herself smiling back, a little, and says in a quiet voice, “Thanks,” but her heart won’t stop trying to burst from her chest. Her hands still won’t calm down and she finds herself standing rigid, eyes focused on the transporter pad as Scotty turns back to his station, and she doesn’t want to blink in case she’ll miss – she keeps her ears open, trying to pick up the faintest of anything, but it’s just her panic and worry that’s coming through.

Her mind matches her franticness, flashing through his life, as best she knows it; not her own because hers isn’t about to end, as far as she knows, she isn’t in nearly as bad a position, and just… There’s a pain in the depths of herself, a cold seeping awareness and she wonders if maybe they do have a link, maybe she’s feeling the onset of death, or maybe it’s just herself, and she has no way of knowing. Uhura has no way of knowing what’s going on around her and somehow that makes the situation even worse, even though not knowing allows her to believe that Spock is still alive – maybe for even longer than is the truth.

_Don’t think like that,_ she snaps at herself, mentally, _he’s still alive. He’s still alive so stop thinking that way._ As far as she knows though, it’s still all lies, and she wants to smack herself for trying to comfort herself that way. Especially if he isn’t and this feeling is an indication, because then it’s even worse, that she isn’t grieving yet when she should be, that she has to start late because she doesn’t know.

She can’t blame anyone though – nobody else has any way of telling her, and if she tried to contact either one of them right now she might be the cause of death, not that she could contact, because it…

The ship doesn’t lurch out beneath her, exactly, because it can’t, but that’s what it feels like, and she hears the announcement to begin firing, all arms, or whatever it is, and she wants to cry out that no, no they can’t attack, not yet, they aren’t back yet, you could be—But Uhura can only take the slightest bit of relief from the fact that it isn’t her voice executing those orders. Because she isn’t needed right now. Her particular skills aren’t—It was ordered.

Spock would insist that the orders be carried out, regardless of his own well being, for the greater good, because the needs of the many are greater than the needs of the few, or the one, but she doesn’t want to listen to that or think that way because it may be true and it may be his way and she may love him for it but…

If something happens and they make it out of this, but he doesn’t, then she has no idea what she’ll do. She recalls meeting him, she recalls her first Vulcan kiss, she recalls… not being able to do anything more, not yet, because they’d… She doesn’t know… She doesn’t know what to recall, what memory to bring back up, what to…

On the outside she is so professional, she has the appropriate amount of detachment, her face is stoic and her lips are pursed a little and she may or may not have blinked in the past several minutes, probably, actually, but inside she doesn’t even know what, and it’s taking too long, and seconds are hours, and by now they haven’t heard anything there must not be—But maybe—She’s maybe just going a little—If he doesn’t come back and she’s left out of it unscathed…

He’d insist that it would be illogical on her part, and she knows it, but if she couldn’t recover or anything she might have to throw herself headlong into… something not good for her. Uhura knows she’s being irrational, that she should continue living out her life, that that’s what he’d want anyway, but if he doesn’t come back then she isn’t totally sure if she could. It’s not a matter of being pathetically in love or dependent or anything. She’s actually more focused on the little bits of life right now, on his presence, in general, that she’s known at the Academy, that she should get to know on the _Enterprise_ , that she—

Uhura snaps out of it when Scotty starts getting excited and steps off to the side, out of the way, for medical, because if they’re needed then they need a clear entry way and that may be what’s most important right now (not even may be, it probably is, it must be, if they found Captain Pike especially, and she doesn’t want to think of any other reason why). She watches as the lights come back and three figures start to materialize in front of her and she thinks it might be the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen.

It’s only later, much later, after repairs have been made and they’re on a five-year mission that she meets up with Spock, because he’d wanted to talk to her, in private. And he confesses that back when on the _Jellyfish_ , all logic and reason and rationale had left his mind for far too long a period of time than what he was comfortable with, and he’d snapped a little, mentally, and switched to the idea that this was a suicide mission for him, because after everything else in that godforsaken day, and he hadn’t expected to be locked on to, he hadn’t even wanted it. And despite everything, his human side, he says, wishes that it hadn’t happened.

That’s when Uhura finally cries.


End file.
